


An Unlikely Pair

by chaineddove



Series: Chemistry-verse [3]
Category: Yami No Matsuei
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-17
Updated: 2012-02-17
Packaged: 2017-10-31 07:45:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaineddove/pseuds/chaineddove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wakaba buys Watari a gift.  003 approves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unlikely Pair

It was more or less a freak accident, though the romantically-minded could potentially label it “destiny.” Whichever it was, though, no one could have predicted it and certainly everyone was a bit taken aback and the chaos a teapot was capable of causing; but then, they really should have known better than to expect the quiet in the Shokan Division’s laboratory to last longer than a few months.

It started innocently enough. On the fateful day when Tatsumi and Watari came in to work together, rumpled, and _three minutes late_ , Wakaba won an obscene amount of money from her co-workers and bought a teapot. The way she figured it, she would never have won the money without them, she wanted to thank them, she was pretty sure Tatsumi-san wasn’t the biggest fan of cake, even her super-special homemade cake, and she knew they drank tea together at 11:30 every single morning. Considering Watari still poured his tea from a beaker, the teapot seemed like a logical thank-you gift.

Wakaba being Wakaba, the selection process took over an hour of cooing over various bits of ceramic and porcelain. She was very content with her final choice and thought Watari would be as well; it would suit his haphazard lab very well. Accordingly, the next morning she tied a bow around the handle and left her offering on Watari’s counter next to the Bunsen burner, then escaped before she could be caught and questioned. That Watari would know exactly who the teapot was from and why, she had no doubt; that Tatsumi would endeavor to kill them all, again, if he ever found out they had been making bets on his personal life… well. As Watari often said, what Tatsumi didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

Watari’s lab being what it was (that is to say completely chaotic), it wasn’t until it was time to take his tea break that he even noticed the gift. By that time, 003 had tugged the ribbon off of the teapot’s handle and was leaning against it, fluffed up, with her eyes half-shut. Watari took one look at the picture she made and started laughing.

When Tatsumi entered the room a few minutes later, however, 003 and her master were arguing rather fiercely. He stood in the doorway watching them a minute, wondering, not for the first time, whether Watari _really_ understood what his familiar was saying. Sometimes he thought the man did it just to get attention, as though anyone could possibly ignore him even when he was _not_ talking to birds.

“Be a good girl,” Watari was saying. “Let go. You’re being silly, it’s just-”

“Is there a problem?” Tatsumi asked him, approaching the counter. He beheld Watari’s small owl, feathers ruffled, clutching the handle to a stout teapot. He felt both of his eyebrows rising. He wasn’t an expert on owl facial expressions, but he would have ventured a guess that 003 was glaring, and that she would have had white knuckles, if, of course, owls had knuckles. Which they didn’t.

Watari huffed in exasperation and looked up at him. “Hi. Apparently, 003 has made a friend.”

“So I see,” Tatsumi replied. “They could almost be related.” Certainly the pudgy earthenware teapot with its wide painted eyes bore a striking resemblance to Watari’s pet.

“Yes, except the fact that one of them is _ceramic_ ,” Watari said, clearly exasperated. The owl hooted derisively.

“She fails to see your logic, I take it,” Tatsumi said dryly. “Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t blame her.”

Watari took the jab with a grin. “One of these days we’re going to discuss the commendable fact that you finally treat my owl like a person.”

“Which she isn’t,” Tatsumi protested.

003 hooted. “Yes, she is.” Watari turned his attention back to the obstinate bird. “Are you going to let go?” Hoot, hoot, hoot. “No, 003, you’re wrong, pouring tea in it isn’t going to hurt-” _HOOT hoot hoot._ Watari sighed. “Right. I’ll go get a beaker. Take a seat, Tatsumi, I’ll have tea ready in just a minute.”

Tatsumi sat but felt the need to ask, “In a beaker?”

“We always have tea in a beaker,” Watari pointed out.

“But now you have a teapot,” Tatsumi argued, if only for the sake of sanity.

Watari chuckled and set a beaker on the burner. “Do you want to try taking it away from her?” 003 trilled contentedly in the back of her throat and nudged the teapot gently with her head. Tatsumi had to admit that he didn’t think taking the thing away would work. Watari put tea leaves in the boiling water and shrugged the way he did when he accidentally destroyed something. “I suppose it could be worse. She could have taken up with the toaster. It would probably have broken her heart.”

The fact that Tatsumi didn’t point out the dozen or so things that were obviously wrong with that statement was probably indicative of just how far gone he was. Instead, he took the cup of tea Watari poured for him, sipped, and told him, “As long as it doesn’t eat my rosebushes.”


End file.
